It is sunset of the thirteenth day of the third month of the fourth turn of the 12th pass.

In Southern:
It is the thirteenth day of Autumn and 71 degrees. Still dark and overcast, the autumn rain has picked up and become heavier, albeit still pleasant.

Where

Savanna, Southern Weyr

OOC Date

27 Feb 2015 08:00

"I think someone is…"

Savanna

Verdant reaches of jungle are a thing of memory here in this dry, scrub-filled plain that reaches into the far distant eastern stretches of the Southern Continent. As the shoreline stretches away, the plains themselves seem endless, broken only by the mesas that litter the landscape. Dry, dusty, and hot, little human habitation occurs here, though herds of beasts roam untamed which only makes this stretch of land a favored spot for feeding hungry dragons.

It is the thirteenth day of Autumn and 71 degrees. Still dark and overcast, the autumn rain has picked up and become heavier, albeit still pleasant.

Timor:
Belior:

It's a bit off the beaten path, this place where people are supposedly meeting in secret at night. There's time then to kill along the walk, the stretch of the savannah just coming into sight in the distance. "What I was planning on doing anyway was just wandering up here, maybe with Dione so we could watch Cha'el's wingrider swoop in and yell his head off. He seemed steamed about something." Lisette's explaining, pausing at the edge of the jungle. She purses her lips and scans the area, empty save for some herdbeasts drifting across the grassy expanse. "I'd have met secretly in a cave, whatever I was doing. What about you?" They're supposed to be seeing if a young man from the barracks is here, meeting with his 'girlfriend'. Though by all accounts his girlfriend is 'a little wild looking if you know what I mean' hint hint nudge nudge wink- okay.

"Okay…" El'ai is alongside Lisette, dressed in what he hopes is clandestine clothing. Sekhaenkath has wandered off because what is more conspicuous than a giant freaking bronze dragon? The dark blue shirt and black trousers let him blend into shadows that aren't there yet, but hey, if there are shadows, HE'S GOT THEM OKAY? "So we're looking for a young man who's meeting his," he slants a look at the Candidate, "girlfriend - are you sure she's a girl? What if she's a he? Those wildlings all look the same." The fences set out in the expanse of the savanna beckon the first twinkling stars of night. "Did you ask Cha'el why on earth some lovers want to meet here? This is not exactly romantic." The devilish twinkle to his eyes bodes no good for their lack of mischief-making. "Well. Here we are. Edge of the jungle. That's the Igen area, way out there." There are people, guards, and stinky herd beasts.

"Right. I'm positive she's a girl, unless men suddenly have 'nice jugs'." Lisette makes a waving motion towards her chest, eyebrow arched as she leans against a tree. "And well, whatever. I don't care if his girlfriend is really a boyfriend. I know who he is and that's what matters, right?" She shakes her head for his last question. "I didn't. What I overheard made it sound like his rider was more concerned than he was. I got preoccupied with the Weyrleader thinking I was hot enough to seduce answers out of people." That's exactly how it went down and she's not changing her story for anything. She turns her head, looking out over at the animals and guards. "Not romantic at all. Also sort of… conspicuous? I don't know, there are people over there."

"I would fake-tell you anything," El'ai teases, mercilessly as he leans closer to the Candidate and waggles his eyebrows with mirth. "Seriously, so we know the boy, but not the girl. Okay. Do you remember what the boy looked like?" Because that's an important detail. Tugging on Lisette's arm, the bronzerider leads her towards the cover of the jungle a little further down the line and a little closer to the pens. "That section is the guard section. That part over there is where the men mend the fence. A whole herd of the damn beasts somehow busted down the fence to get free. And that… well. I guess that dark, shaded part next to that big boulder could be a make-out place… maybe." Even he is dubious. Turning to the girl, he releases her and asks, "Would you have sex on the ground out there?" Hey, Lisette is clearly the one who's qualified to make that call.

"Hmm, yeah I bet you would." El'ai's rewarded for his closeness by her pressing her index finger against his nose and pushing him away by it. With a final glance towards the guards, she allows herself to be tugged away from the edge. "He's about my height, really tan like he spends a lot of time outside. Big arms." Lisette even has the bulging muscles emphasis with clawed hands around her biceps ready to go, just in case he needs further detailing on that. "If you're into that sort of thing." She says of the boulder, eyeing it dubiously. Regardless, that's where her feet take her. "No, thanks for the offer though." See what she did there? She shoots him a radiant smile over her shoulder as she approaches the shadowy area. There's a bit more she could say, except for the shuffling sound of feet that comes from around the other side of the big rock. Between jungle and shadow, she jumps back and presses her back into the stone, beckoning for El'ai.

El'ai affects an eyeroll for Lisette's clawed-hand biceps trick. Of course to be an ass, he has to shove the sleeve of his arm up and flex while trying to stifle laughter. No one ever said the bronzerider was the quietest of boys to be around. "Big arms huh?" His is a natural fitness with cut musculature that runs towards lean strength rather than bulky. He might even do the Egyptian walk until she's beckoning him closer. His height is more his downfall, forcing him to squat in order to not be so easily seen. "You think they're on that side?" Did he respond to her quip? Not really, but there's a dangerous glitter of mischief in those pale pale blue eyes. "If I ever really offer, you'll know." But then his attention is pulled to the scuffling sound. Across the way, a herdbeast bleats. And someone calls out, "THAT YOU JON-BOY?"

"You're strapping." Lisette teases even as she inches down against the rock, not exactly short herself. Her back is pressed into it, glancing down at the now less tall El'ai. "I think someone is…" Her voice is quiet, subdued. There's a soft snort for his response to her earlier remark and she shakes her head. When the call goes out into the night she catches her breath and waits, listening to see if the person on the other side responds. But they don't, there's just silence for what feels like an eternity. The herdbeast person must move along, or perhaps they're waiting out there too. Eventually there are more footsteps and then quiet muttering from the other side. Can words be made out? One is certainly male, the other is much softer spoken.

"I keep in shape," El'ai murmurs, the cocky smile curving his lips though the mask of the good ol' boy holds with the mirth dancing in those eyes. There is something jaded, cynical about the young man, however, more easily seen this close up. "I…" Whatever he was about to continue on to say is cut off when that call goes out. Night has firmly settled with clouds drifting across the starry night's sky to dim even the light given by the moons. Placing his finger to his lips when that scuffling sound is heard and then the softer rumble of voices, he flattens his palms to the rock and slowly starts to inch around. He could use Sekhaenkath, for the dragon is dark enough to be almost hidden against the night if not for the flame-bright feet. He chooses to rely on his very human senses, however. Or he does until his boot steps on a twig and snaps it in two, shattering the night's silence with that single move. El'ai freezes and glances back at Lisette.

"…Rieka…please…no, not that…" Rieka at least sounds like a woman's name, even if her words are pretty much incomprehensible unless you have super hearing. The man's voice sounds a if he's pleading when the next snippet floats through the air, "…bad idea to use fire-" Lisette makes a face and glances over at El'ai. Her expression states clearly what she can't say outloud just yet: weird. Then he snaps the twig and her eyes widen as she stares at him. Why? The voices abruptly cut short as the man stops talking then utters a clear: 'Fuck'. "Someone's around." The one saving grace here is that whoever they are, they least seem just as (or more) frightened to be caught as the two of them are right now.

It is Murphy's law and she's a bitch; that is the unspoken question to the why that Lisette gives him in expression alone. El'ai tries to inch back around the rock when the voice go silent, the Ocelot Wingsecond trying to think fast on his feet. Distraction isn't going to come from their rock however, but from the flashes of lights that wind through the jungles. Torchlight that seems to go well with whomever is talking 'round the other side of that rock about fire. Once again by Lisette's side, the winking lights of torches that disappear and re-appear in the jungle flicker like eerie ghosts, and so he leans in close enough that his lips almost press against the shell of her ear. "We need to get out of here." A rough whisper, but carries some urgency. The pens are too far away and down the valley for them to notice much of anything. Except that there appears to be a dark, dark dragon circling in closer. El'ai chin-nods to the approaching shadow. That, see, is about to be their ticket out of there, but they're not quite out of the woods yet. The other two people on the other side of the rock could still catch them.

"Yeah, agreed." Lisette takes a hold of his sleeve, just in case El'ai decides to make any quick moves that'll involve him leaving her behind. Between the voices and the bobbing torchlight the candidate is spooked enough and more than eager to catch up with the approaching shadow. "Rieka- put that away. We don't know who-" She makes a super annoyed face and dips down to pick up a stone from the ground, hurling it a distance aways from them. Smash, crash into the ground. Hopefully it's misleading enough to get them to focus on that instead of them. "Lets go." She hisses and begins to move, prepared to haul him a long after her, bigger than her or not.

There will be no hauling required. El'ai is not the kind to stick around like a dumbass (hello Hannah) and so he takes the girl's hand lest she run off in the wrong direction and heads out. Luckily the stone does the trick - at least momentarily and they hear, "… fire… can't… did you… they're coming!" But the bronzerider isn't going to let them linger to find out what's happening. They plunge into the jungles at breakneck pace just to get clear of being seen, but that only works for a good five hundred paces before they veer out and into the moonsoaked night of the savannas. Lisette will see - if she's looking - the torches and the painted faces of wildlings. The nightmarchers are headed away from their position, however, but not a face glimpsed so briefly looked friendly. "You okay?" the bronzerider pants once they are under the umbrella of Sekhaenkath's wing.

Lisette does unfortunately catch a glimpse of them, it doesn't seem to put her anymore at ease. When they come to a halt under Sekhaenkath's wing, she exhales and puts her hands down against her knees to catch her breath. "Yeah, I'm fine." They're thankfully removed from potential danger for now, and she straightens up to look at the departing row of bobbing torchlight. "I think it's probably time to go home. Then we can tell Cha'el all about the one-sided conversation and the wandering band of fire carrying wildlings." A nice neat little summary for what could have been a somewhat darker story. If they had gotten caught. And if the catchers were people of ill-intent.

Once El'ai's caught his breath, he leans over and gives Lisette one of those rough-boy hugs that mean little and say everything. "You get to tell Cha'el." Because this Wingsecond? Has drills to make and hey it was Lisette's assignment. With that sorted out, he helps the Candidate up onto the dragon before climbing up himself — watch all that sharp, spike-y dragonflesh that's more like dragon glass — and settling onto the dragon's neck ridges. "Okay, off we go." Because that is totally a saying to break the ice, right? Still, Sekhaenkath wings off and takes the pair away from the place where a far more deadly story could have been told. By the time they land in the bowl, El'ai's surely let humor surface to provoke Lisette's sarcastic wit and so the night ends on the promise of future mischief. Surely. Surely.